Dan Patrick: pysche ward

Let's be candid; who among us was NOT a little depressed during the Reagan years?

Reports of a state senator’s 1980s treatment for depression and exhaustion became an issue in the lieutenant governor’s race late Thursday, when the Quorum Report, a political newsletter, unearthed court papers detailing Dan Patrick's medical history.

In his deposition in a lawsuit, Patrick, whose legal name at the time was Dannie Scott Goeb, said he was diagnosed as having a chemical imbalance in the early 1980s and said he was hospitalized at Spring Shadows Glen in “late ’84 or early ’85, possibly.” He also said the treatment consisted entirely of rest. “I absolutely did nada,” he said in the deposition. “You know, there may have been something I don’t remember. But, you know, I did nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep.”

He was asked in the deposition, related to a lawsuit over an altercation with a newspaper reporter, whether he had suffered a nervous breakdown, and said, “No.” He also said he had not told any doctors he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Later in the deposition, Patrick said he was admitted into Memorial City Hospital in June 1982 for “a week, two weeks” of rest. Asked if he considered that “a significant event in his life,” he answered, “no.” And he said that the diagnosis of a chemical imbalance was made after tests taken during that stay.

This has been an inappropriate line of attack going back well before Reagan (Thomas Eagleton, anyone?).  Karl Rove just advanced a similar smear against Hillary Clinton earlier this week.  And it's not far removed from our local merchants of slime -- some holding Bibles aloft, mind you -- who would attempt to classify transgendered people as sexual predators.  Classless acts, all.

The only difference I can see is that moderate Texas Republicans (sic) like David Dewhurst and Jerry Patterson -- uncontent with the "liberalism is a mental disorder" gambit -- have turned their fire inward, waging war on the extremists in their own ranks.  Which is something of a role switch.

Lesser of two evils, anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Update: Mental health concerns from the past are off limits... unless you're Wendy Davis, of course.

It’s good to see Patrick supporters—and Republican state senators—speaking out about the stigma of mental illness, and the unfairness of this as an attack line in a campaign. But for those of us with memories that reach back to November, it’s a bit odd, because of what many conservatives in the state were saying about state Sen. Wendy Davis.

Fast food workers across the planet strike today

There is a workers' uprising after all, two weeks after May Day.

From New York City to Nigeria and New Zealand, fast food workers will strike and protest on Thursday to demand higher pay and better working conditions — in a global day of action with unprecedented reach for the industry.

Workers and labor organizers across the globe have united in a campaign that aims to advance workers’ specific demands in each country, while also showing solidarity with the US-based push for a $15 hourly wage and workers’ right to unionize without fearing retaliation.

[...]

Rallies and sit-ins will take place in 33 countries and 150 cities — a list that is growing by the day, organizers said. The action is reaching countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, some for the first time, in addition to Europe and the Americas. In some locations, strikes and rallies in solidarity with US workers will continue on Friday.

In the US, thousands of workers are expected to strike in St. Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City among others — where they will demand the right to organize and a doubling of their wages from the current $7.25, the federal minimum wage.

If I were advising any Democratic politicians who had a goal of expanding the electorate six months from now, I would say: "Get out to the streets in front of a Papa John's or a Mickey D's today".

The global day of protest comes on the same day McDonald’s employees in California, Michigan, and New York filed class-action lawsuits against the hamburger chain – which serves an estimated 68 million customers daily in 119 countries - alleging the company is making employees work off the clock, refusing to pay overtime and even charging employees to have their uniforms cleaned.

“We’ve uncovered several unlawful schemes, but they all share a common purpose – to drive labor costs down by stealing wages from McDonald’s workers,” Michael Rubin of Altshuler Berzon LLP, the lawyer who filed the California suits, said in a media statement announcing the suits. “These McDonald’s workers have courageously stepped forward to shine a light on these illegal practices, and already we’ve begun to hear from several co-workers with similar wage theft claims.”

Refusing to pay in full the already poverty-level wages of their workers.  Counseling them to apply for public assistance (a cue taken from Walmart).  Record profits, lowest wages in the nation, and the broadest gap between what their employees and their top management earn.

Yeah, I'm not lovin' it.  That's a supersized order of revolution.  Make mine a combo, with some economic and social justice, please.